Curing Back Pain & Sciatica Naturally

What Is Nerve Pain?

What is Nerve Pain?

Understanding sciatica will give light on the workings of nerve pain because sciatica is a set of symptoms that are manifestations of nerve pain. Sciatica is a nerve pain that is caused by an irritation or trauma of the sciatic nerve, the body’s largest nerve.

The sciatic nerve starts from the lumbar spinal cord, all the way to the buttocks area. The sciatic nerve also has nerve endings that extend to the lower limb. Sciatica is a recurring pain that is normally felt starting from the lower back and extends all the way down to the knees.

There are several causes associated with nerve pain. Movement and sports-related injury usually causes nerve pain. One of the most typical causes of nerve pain is disc herniation. When the soft and inner part of the disc slips out, this can irritate and pinch the sciatic nerve and trigger sciatica. Muscle trauma, tumors, injury, and infection from internal bleeding can also trigger sciatica. People with diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune diseases are often at higher risk of sciatica.

Pregnant women are also at the risk of contracting sciatica because the weight they carry can potentially irritate the sciatic nerve, cause postural problems, muscle imbalances, and even disc bulges and/or herniations. There is more to sciatica than movement-related injury, so people should be aware of its various causes.

It’s definitely not difficult to see the symptoms of sciatica, as long as you don’t ignore back pain or pain in your extremities. If it becomes chronic, you should seek your doctor for professional treatment if possible. Your doctor probably won’t be very good at treating back pain him/herself, but they should be able to refer you to a reputable physiotherapist or rehabilitation center.

It all starts with chronic pain, extreme sensitivity, or numbness. At times, the pain can escalate into a tingling and burning sensation. Patients will often feel the pins-and-needles sensation. Although not common, loss of bladder control occurs in some sciatica patients. When it gets to this point, the sciatica problem should be taken seriously because it is causing serious stress to the nerve and could result in permanent damage.

In the beginning, sciatica may be nothing more than an occasional burning or numbing sensation on the lower back and upper buttocks. Sometimes, the upper and even lower legs fall victims to sciatica pain, tingling, and numbness. It may escalate to hip pain and back pain may occur more frequently. Not paying attention to these things may cause more damage because every move you make that’s unsupervised by a professional therapist will aggravate the problem. At first, only some activities will be affected. However, worst case scenarios often leave patients unable to walk.

What is Nerve Pain: Treating Back Spasms

Naturally, recurring intense back pains or back spasms have to be checked by the doctor. However, there are some remedies you can perform at home. You can opt for a prescribed and safe painkiller. You can also apply the hot/cold treatment. Some people say that only cold treatment should be applied to nerve-related injuries but there should be modifications. Cold compress works in the first few moments of the injury. An ice pack will reduce injury. However, after initial swelling has been treated with cold compress, hot compress should be used in place of cold compress to treat long-term pain. Some people alternate hot and cold compress for back spasms (another form of nerve pain) to break the spasm pattern.

Sciatica is manageable ordeal, particularly when detected early. Stretching and therapy with a professional therapist regularly will eventually ease sciatica. Sciatica hinders movements but it should never be a reason not to move because movement will actually ease the pain, as recommended by many physicians. Electrical stimulation is also another option, although this can be more costly. Surgery is always an option but it should be a last-resort, when all other treatments have been exhausted. Surgery has its own set of risks that may aggravate the problem.

There are a couple home treatments for Sciatica that I can recommend, but the best option is to seek professional help from an experienced physiotherapist and/or rehabilitation specialist with a good reputation for helping people with a similar condition to yours. With that being said, there are some good home treatment programs that I recommend (yes I have used them and I still do). Click the links below for more information about these home programs: